Diana, Princess of Wales, greets her fans in Edmonton in 1983.

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EDMONTON - Few people have been so eulogized and publicly mourned as Diana, Princess of Wales.

With the arrival of Diana, A Celebration at West Edmonton Mall, we are reminded of one of the 20th century’s great icons — but also of how obsession over her private details contributed to her death at 36 in a Paris tunnel, chased by hungry paparazzi.

The revealing multi-room exhibition, which runs through June, is donating all its profits to the charitable foundation formed just days after Diana was killed. And yet despite the humanitarian benefits, thanks to Diana’s final circumstances, one can’t entirely escape thinking about the often-crossed line between public and private lives, royal or not.

Carolyn Harris has a PhD in history, lectures at the University of Toronto and is an expert on all things royal. The writhing media attention over the investigation of Richard III’s mutilated skeleton under a parking lot is a natural segue into a discussion about how it is that Diana still occupies so much territory in people’s hearts. “There’s always been a great deal of popular fascination about royal events, whether it’s weddings or funerals or births,” Harris says, fittingly just out of a lecture on coronations.

“The decisions royal women make in how they conduct their marriages and how they raise their children has profound social and political implications. Queen Victoria’s white wedding dress was reproduced in numerous newspapers and engravings, and that became the norm. Before that, you just wore your best dress. After that, everyone wanted a white dress with orange blossoms.”

Diana certainly took the white dress to heart — the dress is one of the items on display in the mall. Victoria also popularized anesthesia, Harris notes. “According to the Bible, women were supposed to give birth in pain, but Queen Victoria was expecting baby No. 8 and pronounced it ‘blessed, blessed chloroform’.”

Living in the modern age, many of Diana’s contributions were, ironically, centred around access. “What’s interesting about Diana was her ability to connect with people in all circumstances. She did a very good job of being a royal person who people felt they could directly relate to. She showed her vulnerability. She had a self-deprecating sense of humour, joking about the low marks she’d received in school.

“This led to people feeling they could relate to her and the enormous amount of grief people felt about her death in 1997.

“During royal walkabouts she’d have longer conversations with ordinary people, or she’d crouch down to the level of someone in a wheelchair, or a child, so she wouldn’t be talking down to them. That’s affected how royal walkabouts were done in 2011, when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were praised for having long conversations with ordinary Canadians.”

Her other gifts were more universal, and sometimes controversial. “She was willing to take on non-traditional charities at a time where there was a great deal of suspicion for people who had HIV. She was holding their hands and making clear these people were not to be ostracized. Later in her life, with landmines, she was once again taking on a more controversial, political cause and bringing attention to that.”

Harris explains how despite her wealth and position, people felt a growing sympathy for Diana, especially as the marriage deteriorated. “Diana was very young when she married Prince Charles, and they didn’t have a lot of time to get to know each other. It’s very different with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who met in university, were close in age and dated for years before they became engaged. But Charles and Diana were in a sense putting together their public image as a royal couple, undertaking formal events, at the same time as they were negotiating their relationship and their marriage. And William was born within a year of their marriage, so there were a lot of changes all at the same time.”

Splitting with Charles after the most-watched wedding in history, Diana also advanced royal divorce. “Only a generation before, Princes Margaret had sought to marry a divorced man, the innocent party in a divorce case. And she ultimately decided not to marry him, in her speech on this, ‘mindful of the teachings of the church.’ But ultimately, Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong Jones would divorce, and three out of the Queen’s four children have divorced — so attitudes about this have changed greatly in a very short period of time.”

Harris notes it’s hard not to remember Diana, thanks to her children, whom she raised hands-on. “There’s been a tremendous amount of interest in William and Harry and how they have grown up. This year, if Diana were alive, she’d be becoming a grandmother, which is hard to believe as she’s been immortalized as a young woman. There’s a lot of interest in what influence Diana’s had over William, what his approach to being a parent will be in 2013.

“I find the approach to royal tours that both William and Harry have adopted have a spontaneity and informality that seems to demonstrate their mother’s influence. When Prince Harry toured the Caribbean for the Diamond Jubilee, he was dancing with people he had encountered along the way,” she says, reminding one of Diana dancing with John Travolta, long ago.

Ultimately, the way their mother died turned her sons into lions, roaring against intrusion. “William took active steps to stop the distribution of (compromising) photos of he and Catherine in the south of France, where in the past there was always the approach of not engaging with the media. William and Harry have been more assertive in their dealings with the media than previous generations of the Royal Family.”

Finally, Diana lingers for those who refuse to believe the accident was, indeed, an accident. “Because of the story arch of Diana’s life and her dying when she did, it did lead to these continuing lingering suspicions of there being a conspiracy,” Harris says. “Even though all these inquests have ruled that out.”

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